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Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare

Act IV, scenes i–ii

Act V, scenes iv–v

Summary: Act V, scene i

Octavius and Antony enter the battlefield at Philippi
with their armies. A messenger arrives to report that the enemy
is ready for battle. Antony, the more experienced soldier, tells
Octavius to attack from the left. Octavius refuses and replies that
he will attack from the right and Antony can come from the left.
Antony asks Octavius why he questions his authority, but Octavius
stands firm.

The enemy factions—consisting of Brutus, Cassius, and
their armies—enter; Titinius, Lucillius, and Messala are among them. Octavius
asks Antony if their side should attack first, and Antony, now calling
Octavius “Caesar,” responds that they will wait for the enemy to
attack. Antony and Octavius go to meet Brutus and Cassius. The leaders
exchange insults. Octavius draws his sword and calls for Caesar’s
death to be avenged; he swears that he will not lay the sword down
again until another Caesar (namely himself) adds the deaths of the
traitors to the general slaughter. The leaders insult each other
further before parting to ready their armies for battle.

After the departure of Antony and Octavius, Brutus calls
Lucillius to talk privately. Cassius calls Messala to do the same.
Cassius tells the soldier that it is his birthday and informs him
of recent bad omens: two mighty eagles alighted on the foremost
banners of their army and perched there, feeding from the soldiers’
hands; this morning, however, they are gone. Now ravens, crows,
and other scavenger birds circle over the troops as if the men were
diseased and weak prey. Cassius walks back to join Brutus and comments that
the future looks uncertain; if they lose, they may never see each other
again. Cassius asks Brutus if Brutus would allow himself to be led
through Rome as a captive should they lose. Brutus replies that he
would rather die than go to Rome as a defeated prisoner; he declares
that this day “must end that work the ides of March begun”—that
is, the battle represents the final stage in the struggle for power
that began with the murder of Caesar (V.i.114).
He bids Cassius “for ever and for ever farewell” (V.i.117).
Cassius echoes these sentiments, and the men depart.

Summary: Act V, scene ii

The battle begins between the scenes, and the next scene,
comprising a scant total of six lines, depicts the two sides’ first
surge against each other. Brutus sends Messala to Cassius to report
that he senses a weakness in Octavius’s army and will push forward
to exploit it.

Summary: Act V, scene iii

The next scene finds Cassius standing on a hill
with Titinius, watching the battle and lamenting its course. Though
Brutus was correct in noting Octavius’s weakness, he proved overeager
in his attack, and the tide of battle has turned against him. Pindarus
now runs up to Cassius with a report: Antony’s troops have entered
Cassius’s camp. He advises Cassius to flee to some more distant
spot. Cassius refuses to move but, catching sight of a group of
burning tents, asks if those tents are his. Titinius confirms that
they are. Cassius then notices a series of advancing troops in the
distance; he gives Titinius his horse and instructs him to find
out whose troops they are. Titinius obeys and rides off.

Cassius asks Pindarus to ascend a nearby hill and monitor
Titinius’s progress. Pindarus calls down his reports: Titinius,
riding hard, is soon surrounded by the unknown men; he dismounts
the horse and the unknown men cheer. Distraught at this news of
what he takes to be his best friend’s capture, Cassius tells Pindarus
to watch no more. Pindarus descends the hilltop, whereupon Cassius
gives Pindarus his sword, covers his own eyes, and asks Pindarus
to kill him. Pindarus complies. Dying, Cassius’s last words are
that Caesar has now been revenged by the very sword that killed
him.

Unexpectedly, Titinius now enters with Messala, observing
that the battle rages on without sign of ending. Although Antony’s
forces defeated those of Cassius, Brutus’s legions rallied to defeat
those of Octavius. The men then discover Cassius’s body. Titinius
realizes what has happened: when he rode out to the unknown troops,
he discovered the troops to be Brutus’s; the men’s embrace of Titinius must
have appeared to Pindarus a capture, and Cassius must have misperceived
their joyful cheers of reunion as the bloodthirsty roars of the
enemy’s men. Messala departs to bring the tragic news to Brutus.
Titinius mourns over Cassius’s body, anguished that a man whom he
greatly admired died over such a mistake. Miserable, Titinius stabs
himself and dies.

Brutus now enters with Messala and his men. Finding the
bodies, Brutus cries, “O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet”: even
in death, Caesar is reaping revenge; he seems to turn events against
his murderers from beyond the grave (V.iii.93).
Brutus orders that Cassius’s body be taken away, and the men set
off to struggle again with the armies of Antony and Octavius.

Analysis: Act V, scene i–iii

When Octavius refuses to agree to Antony’s strategic instructions before
the battle, his obstinate resolution to follow his own will and his
clarity of command echo Caesar’s first appearance in the play. In Act
I, scene ii, Antony comments, “When Caesar says ‘Do this,’ it is performed”;
such authority is the mark of a powerful leader (I.ii.12).
Octavius, Caesar’s chosen successor, now has this authority too—his
word equals action. Antony, noticing this similarity between adopted
son and father, begins calling Octavius “Caesar.” Just as Caesar
transforms his name from that of a mere mortal into that of a divine
figure, Antony converts “Caesar,” once one man’s name, into the
generic title for the ruler of Rome. In at least one way, then,
Caesar’s permanence is established.

The exchange between the four leaders profits from close
reading, as it compares the respective powers of words and swords
to harm. When Brutus insists that “good words are better than bad strokes,”
Antony replies, “In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words.
/ Witness the hole you made in Caesar’s heart, / Crying ‘Long live,
hail Caesar’” (V.i.29–32).
Antony suggests that Brutus’s use of rhetoric has been just as damaging
to Rome as his physical blows, for by falsely swearing allegiance
to Caesar he deceived and betrayed him—hypocritically, he murdered
Caesar even as he cheered in support of him. Cassius returns the
insult by comparing Antony’s words to an annoying bee’s buzzing,
and Antony condemns Cassius and Brutus as “flatterers” (V.i.45).
The politicians engage in a skillful rhetorical skirmish, but, ultimately,
their words have no effective power. Since Brutus’s actions have
proved his words treacherous and untrustworthy, the murder of Caesar
can now be answered only in blood.

The tragic circumstances of Cassius’s death represent
another instance of misinterpretation. They refer strongly to Caesar’s
death: like Caesar, Cassius dies after failing to perceive the truth;
and he dies from his own sword, the same sword that killed Caesar.
Indeed, the entire scene attests to Caesar’s continuing power of
influence from beyond the grave: as Cassius dies, he credits the
murdered leader with his defeat. Brutus, with the ghostly visitor
of the previous night fresh in his mind, also interprets Cassius’s
death as the doings of a vengeful Caesar. In believing himself immortal,
Caesar opened himself up to his murder by the conspirators, and
his death seemed to disprove his faith in his own permanence. Yet
now the power of Caesar appears to linger on, as events unfold in
exact compliance with what Caesar would have wished.

Just as the misinformation that causes Cassius to commit
suicide cheapens his death, so too do the manner and consequence
of his death render it less noble. Cassius desires a virtuous death,
and he believes that dying out of respect and sympathy for his captured friend
will afford him just such an end: “O coward that I am, to live so
long / To see my best friend ta’en before my face!” (V.iii.34–35). He
cannot, however, bring himself to perform the necessary act; though
he implies that his choice to die is brave, he does not possess the
requisite bravery. Cassius’s last line widens this gap between his conception
and reality: “Caesar, thou art revenged, / Even with the sword that
killed thee” (V.iii.44–45).
Cassius attempts to situate his death as a righteous, even graceful,
working of dignified fate, and perhaps even to compare himself to
the great Caesar. Yet while the sword that kills both is, fatefully,
the same, the hands that drive it are not, ruining Cassius’s parallel.
Immediately after Cassius’s death, no dedicated friend
delivers a praise-filled, tearful eulogy celebrating his life. Rather,
the only witness, Pindarus, a lowly slave, flees to his freedom,
“where never Roman shall take note of him” (V.iii.49). Pindarus’s
idea of escaping notice reflects upon Cassius and his ignoble deeds,
for which history will not remember him kindly.